1. Field
The following description relates to a tablet cartridge for use in a medication dispensing apparatus to hold tablets or capsules.
2. Background
Recently, many studies on an automated medication dispensing apparatus have been carried out to overcome problems caused by pharmacists' manual dispensing of medications. Generally, a medication dispensing apparatus has a set of tablet cartridges arranged in multiple layers with upper part to contain various types of tablets or capsules held in an upper chamber. The tablets contained in the tablet cartridges may be selectively discharged under the user's control by use of a computer interfaced with the tablet cartridges. The tablets discharged from the cartridges are collected in a hopper and then packaged in a packaging unit located in a lower part of the medication dispensing apparatus.
The tablet cartridge has an opening for dispensing tablets at a lower part of a case, and a cylindrical rotor above the dispensing opening with a plurality of “guide-teeth” and tablet insertion grooves along its circumference. The rotor is connected to a rotator placed under the dispensing opening. The rotor rotates along with the rotator, which is rotated by a rotation motor.
A large number of tablets are contained in the case of the tablet cartridge, and a single tablet or a predetermined number of tablets are stored in each tablet insertion groove between the guide-teeth of the rotor disposed below the case. In this state, as the rotor rotates, the tablet insertion grooves change positions and each is sequentially brought into line with the dispensing opening, such that the tablets in the tablet insertion groove 112 are discharged through the dispensing opening. At this time, a tablet stopper is provided at the top of the dispensing opening. The tablet stopper closes the top of the tablet insertion groove that is placed in line with the dispensing opening, so as to prevent other tablets contained in another tablet insertion groove from being discharged through the dispensing opening.
According to conventional methods, an installation of a tablet stopper in a case is difficult to perform. To address this problem, Korean Utility Model Registration No. 20-0438560 (published on Feb. 22, 2008) discloses a coupling projection unit on one side of a tablet case to allow for the installation of a tablet separation plate, which is equivalent to a tablet stopper. The coupling projection unit includes inserting projections on each side. The tablet case has an insertion hole at a position corresponding to the center of the coupling projection unit. The tablet separation plate with fixing projections is inserted into the insertion hole. A cover having inserting grooves formed on both sides thereof is attached to the coupling projection unit.
If the type of tablets to be contained in the case changes, a rotor needs to be replaced by another one having a width and height suitable for the changed tablets. According to the related art, an insertion hole has to be altered in accordance with the width and height of tablet insertion grooves of the new rotor, so as to allow the tablet separation plate to be inserted through the case, and thus difficulties in efficiently adapting to the rotor replacement occur.